The Truth About New Earth
by Gates Hepburn
Summary: Janeway tells the truth about what went on on New Earth


**Disclaimer:** Not mine, no copyright infringement intended, Paramount owns them (…if they were mine there would be no need to write fanfiction about them because there would be no UST and the ship would be filled with puppies, babies and the galaxy's largest bathtub.) Dialogue from _Resolutions_ was written by Jeri Taylor (a true JCer) and is in italics.

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**The Truth About New Earth**

By Gates Hepburn

"Much has been speculated about the relationship between Commander Chakotay and myself after our three month marooning on an uninhabited M-class planet (we lovingly christened it New Earth)… who am I kidding, much was speculated about it before we ever wound up on New Earth. But right here and now once and for all I intend to set the record straight.

At first settling into life on New Earth felt just like a working shore-leave. I devoted every waking moment to my research of finding an antidote to counter the affects of the insect that infected us; Chakotay devoted his time to starting a life for us. At first it was just little things, like doing the bulk of the shelter building and making our meals (I have always hated cooking). Then he spent his time making us a home, surprising me with a bathtub after I expressed disappointment in Starfleet not providing one in emergency shelter packages, making headboards for our beds so that we would be more comfortable when we sat up late to read… always thinking of me and my comfort.

It wasn't until an anomalous plasma storm struck, destroying all of my research and supplies that I realized that New Earth was going to permanently be my… our home for good. He was so good to me during that time… holding me close to his chest under the little table in our shelter as the world came crashing down around us and allowing me to come to terms with everything in my own way. We spent the next few days after the storm cleaning up our backyard (although I guess you could really say that the whole planet was our backyard) trying to gain some semblance of order.

It was more physical labor than I had experienced in ages and my muscles really felt the need to remind me of that. Chakotay took the opportunity to show me just how skillful those hands of his can be and started to work out all of the knots. The tension in my muscles dissipated almost immediately under his soothing touch… the tension in my heart and mind however caught up with me as soon as I started to feel too comfortable in his hands. I felt his hands still and his breath in my hair, and in that moment I panicked. I wanted to tell him so much, wanted to let him see… to experience everything that I could see in his eyes reflected in my own, but all I could do was thank him for the massage and hastily retreat behind my sleeping partition.

Of course I couldn't find sleep… I tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable position, a position that would help me forget how good it felt to finally let him touch me. I resolved to get up and face this thing head on, I decided that we were going to need to define relationship parameters if our living together was every going to work… and it had to work. I told him as much, but what he did next shocked the hell out of me and cast away any doubts that I may have had. He told me a story, an ancient legend (or so he called it…) and to this day I still remember every last word.

'_I can tell you a story, an ancient legend among my people. It's about an angry warrior who lived his life in conflict with the rest of his tribe. A man who couldn't find peace even with the help of his spirit guide. For years he struggled with his discontent. The only satisfaction he ever got came when he was in battle. This made him a hero among his tribe, but the warrior still longed for peace within himself. One day, he and his war party were captured by a neighboring tribe led by a woman warrior. She called on him to join her because her tribe was too small and weak to defend itself from all its enemies. The woman warrior was brave, and beautiful. And very wise. The angry warrior swore to himself that he would stay by her side, doing whatever he could to make her burden lighter. From that point on, her needs would come first. And in that way, the warrior began to know the true meaning of peace.'_

Looking into his eyes I realized that this was not really a legend, but something directly from his heart.

'_Is that really an ancient legend?' _I asked him, knowing full well that it wasn't.

'_No. But that made it easier to say,' _he replied never breaking eye contact with me. It was the most beautiful declaration I had every heard before in my life. I was so overcome with his loyalty, devotion and his love that I extended my hand to his across the small table and he entwined his fingers with mine. We sat like that for a while just looking into each others eyes and then I said those three little words that he conveyed so beautifully in his story, but never actually said, probably because he wasn't sure that I was ready to hear them, but as they left my mouth I had no doubt that he felt the same because he had pulled me into a hug so fast that I don't even know how we got away from the table.

Our first kiss was a gentle whisper of a kiss… a promise of everything that was yet to come and believe me a promise fulfilled many times over. From that night on we never again slept alone on New Earth, my small bed became our even smaller bed until he came up with the bright idea of pushing our two beds together. We spent our days discovering everything our planet had to offer and our nights discovering each other before drifting off to sleep curled in each others arms.

We discussed the prospect of having children, but we both agreed that it would be unfair to bring a child into our isolated little world. Early on in our relationship I had a pregnancy scare, it was a false alarm, but it made me realize just how much I really wanted to have children… not just children but Chakotay's children. I know that he really wanted them as well and it broke my heart when I realized that it really was just a false alarm. From that point on we both went to extreme measures with our contraceptives. To lighten the mood surrounding my disappointment about the pregnancy, Chakotay joked that we could always adopt the monkey; I seriously thought about it.

Life was better than I had every remembered it being… I was home, albeit on the other side of the galaxy from where I was born, but so long as I was with Chakotay, I was home.

For over three months New Earth was home and when Voyager came back for us with a vaccine, I seriously thought about telling them to just go away and not look back… but I couldn't do that, the captain in me would never let me do that.

Chakotay and I spent the last two days of life on our planet packing up all of our supplies, not just the stuff that was sent from Voyager but the stuff that he had so lovingly built for us while we were there. We avoided the conversation that we both knew was inevitable and spent our last night on New Earth wrapped in each others arms. Our final morning after everything was packed and we separated the beds, we finally talked about what would become of us. While we both knew how much we loved each other we agreed that for the time being bringing the relationship that we gained on New Earth back with us to Voyager would not be a good idea. We vowed that on Voyager we would be captain and commander, no longer Kathryn and Chakotay.

I was surprised at how easy we both fell back into those roles, although I must admit that there were a few nights when we broke our resolve and ended up in each others arms and other nights that we had late night tear filled conversations over the comm-line . We both had our share of short lived romances with passing aliens and holograms and our share of hurt, both intentional and non. His brief relationship with Seven right before we reached the Alpha quadrant was a shock and a sore spot for a while, but what's past is past.

We are home now, and for the first time we are about to truly confess our feelings for each other to the crew (who have been in the dark for the last five years) when we walk into Voyager's welcome home party at Starfleet headquarters hand in hand as husband and wife. On the first day we were allowed off of the ship after the debriefings Chakotay escorted me home to Indiana, where he proceeded to propose and that night we transported to Las Vegas for an old fashioned elopement... it wasn't everything I had always dreamed my wedding would be, but it was perfect non the less. We can finally fulfill all of our dreams.

Computer end entry, mark it for delivery to the Starfleet Press office at 0800 hours tomorrow morning and sign it Admiral Kathryn Janeway."

The End


End file.
